80 per cent of world’s city dwellers breathing bad air: UN

GENEVA — Over 80 per cent of the world’s citydwellers breathe poor quality air, increasing their risk of lung cancer andother life-threatening diseases, a new World Health Organisation (WHO) reportwarned on Thursday.

Urban residents in poor countries are by far the worst affected, WHO said,noting that nearly every city (98 per cent) in low – and middle-income countrieshas air which fails to meet the UN body’s standards.

That number falls to 56 per cent of cities in wealthier countries.

"Urban air pollution continues to rise at an alarming rate, wreaking havocon human health," Maria Neira, the head of WHO’s department of public healthand environment, said in a statement.

The UN agency’s latest air pollution database reveals an overalldeterioration of air in the planet’s cities, and highlights the growing risk ofserious health conditions also including stroke and asthma.

The report, which focused on outdoor rather than household air, compareddata collected from 795 cities in 67 countries between 2008 and 2013.

Tracking the prevalence of harmful pollutants like sulfate and blackcarbon, WHO found that air quality was generally improving in richer regionslike Europe and North America, but worsening in developing regions, notably theMiddle East and south-east Asia.

Overall, contaminants in outdoor air caused more than 3 million prematuredeaths a year, the UN body said.

The quality of air pollution data provided by individual countries variesconsiderably, and WHO does not compile a ranking of the world’s most pollutedcities.

But, in a sample of selected mega-cities with a population above 14million, New Delhi was the most polluted, followed by Cairo and Bangladesh’scapital Dhaka.

Crucially, key African centres like Nigeria’s mega-city Lagos were excludedfrom the list because of the sparse availability of air quality data in manyparts of the continent, WHO said.

A sample of European data showed that Rome had slightly worse air thanBerlin, followed by London and Madrid.—AFP